Max
It was just this Christmas that went by, and things were getting busy. I had to start buying presents for the family. I had finished shopping, but I still needed to grab a present for my little cousin. She is not very hard to shop for since she is 4. She likes things like Peppa Pig and My Little Pony. She really liked, and I say 'liked' for a reason, Max & Ruby. So when I decided to go looking for a present, I figured something like a Max & Ruby DVD would have been perfect, since she liked to watch it on a daily basis. However, Christmas meant that most of the online DVDs were sold out on most places. I went to look on eBay as well, but figured I could not trust what condition the discs would have been in. So I was stuck in a rut for a while, until that package arrived. I was at home still scrolling for a DVD, until I heard the sound of something being pushed into my letter box. I caught a hold of it before my dog did, and looked at the package. It seemed to be wrapped fairly badly, with what looked like grease marks and stains on it. I was a little reluctant to open it, but decided why not? Not like it'll bite. Inside was something that I could not explain. It was a Max & Ruby DVD, but I had not seen one like it online. It was like some little kid had drawn on the front cover with a marker. The title was just, "MAX & RUBY", with what looked like a poorly drawn illustration of Max and Ruby on the front. There were no names or anything, but on the back it had a list of 4 episodes, all with blunt titles. # Episode_0001 # Episode_0002 # Episode_0003 # Episode_0004 I was weary to about the disc. It was apparent that someone, somehow, had tracked my browsing history while I was searching for a DVD for my cousin, and traced it back to my house. After giving it much thought, I figured it wouldn't hurt to give the DVD a watch over. The area where I live is usually rather peaceful, but there is a police station about a block away. If I turned out to have a potential stalker problem on my hands, or some sort of prank, I could have the cops at my house in a moment's notice. To my surprise, the episodes were all high quality, and seemed to have no flaws. It was as if it was a real DVD, just with a home made cover. The only thing I thought was odd was the episode selection screen. The episodes had names, but they were all called, "MAX & RUBY N", with the numbers being changed as it went down the list. The actual selection screen was just a plain white screen with black text with the episode list, and nothing else. I decided to change the cover to something a little nicer by printing out a DVD cover that I had found on Google and tracked down the names of the episodes so they were labeled right. I left the episode list screen alone, because I figured it was self-explanatory. Christmas went by, and things were fine. I gave my little cousin her DVD and she was happy with it all through Christmas, but that was only because she had not watched it yet. On Boxing Day, the family had gone out for a meal, and left me to babysit my cousin. I was not too bothered about being left at home. I figured now was a good time to put on the DVD for her. I had put the disc in and let it play, while I was in the kitchen eating my dinner. From what I could hear, she had watched episodes 1 to 3 so far. I was just about to finish off my noodles when I heard my cousin screaming from the other room. Dropping everything, I had ran into the living room and saw my cousin curled up on the floor screaming. I had looked up at the TV and I felt my heart in my throat. What I caught a glimpse of, while not the most horrifying thing I'd ever seen, was pretty ghastly. It was what appeared to be a frame of Max and Ruby standing next to each-other, in complete darkness. But what made it so horrible was their lack of faces. They had lost their noses and mouths, and their eyes were replaced with big black holes. The colors were a myriad of black and dark reds, and the picture was slightly obscured by static. The sound was replaced with what I assume was the Max & Ruby theme albeit played backwards, with the faint sound of static in the mix of it all. Above the picture sat a caption that read, "DEATH IS OUR ONLY RELEASE". After having gathered my wits, I quickly turned the DVD player off. I was able to calm my cousin down, telling her it was not real, and she had just had a nightmare as she had fallen asleep in front of the TV. However, I knew in my mind it was completely real. My parents had rung me up and told me they were going to be out all night, so this was going to be the best opportunity to look at this DVD more closely. I did not mention it to them, and as soon as the hung up I grabbed the disc and stuck it on my laptop. As soon as it loaded, I selected "MAX & RUBY 0004". Since my cousin was now asleep, I plugged in my earbuds so she can sleep without having to hear anything. Normally an episode of Max & Ruby would have three short stories, but this episode only had one. It started off quite light-hearted. Max and Ruby were playing tag in the garden, and a pair of older rabbits -- I assume Max and Ruby's parents -- were on the porch watching them play. Something was off. First, they never mentioned nor showed Max and Ruby's parents as far as I was aware. That, however, was the least of my concerns. The sound was messed up, and the look on the parents' faces suggested that they were forlorn. It panned to the mother and father, and in a voice of deep sorrow, the father spoke. "It's such a shame," he sighed. It then cut short to the sound of static and a loud scream, followed by the sound of two people choking. This sounded less like voice actors or someone pretend choking; it sounded as though it was an actual audio recording of two people being choked to death. The scene then switched to Max and Ruby standing in front of what looked like a gravestone labeled, "R.I.P. MOMMY AND DADDY". The two of them had no faces. At this point, there was also no sound, apart from faint static. This scene remained on screen for about a minute and a half, before it cut away into black. It then changed scene again, now showing Max and Ruby sitting in Ruby's room. Both of them were sobbing. Once more, this sounded more like a recording of children actually crying than it did just a fake-out. What happened next was probably the most disgusting thing I'd witnessed in this video. The scene had changed to Max sitting in his room. He was standing on a chair with a noose hanging from the ceiling. He had brought it around his neck. The scene faded to black and the static got louder. Almost instantly, it then cut to Ruby walking in on her brother. The scene cut to black with the loud static. When the screen returned, Ruby was standing, now on her own, in the garden by two gravestones. One was labeled, "R.I.P. MOMMY AND DADDY", and the other, "R.I.P. BROTHER". The screen had faded to black afterwards. At this point, I had already been sick and was sitting all shaken. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of sick freak would make something like this. The episode seemed to have come to an end at last, as the Max and Ruby theme song played over the regular end credits. I was about to eject the DVD when the same image came up like it did on the TV. This time, it had failed to scare me. I almost immediately returned to ejecting the disc. I sat there trying to contemplate what had happened. It was obvious that this was fake, and whoever tracked down my location made this to scare me, or whoever else watched it, but why? Was this some sort of threat? Were they stalking me? I called the police down and explained everything. When they arrived, I showed them the episode. Though they initially suspected that I may have made this up to mess with them, they took the disc for further investigation anyway. Before they left, I found a note inside the disc case that I hadn't noticed before. "Death is our only release," it read. Needless to say, they took the note, too. Before the police showed up, I kept a few screenshots and saved them to my laptop. The next couple of days went past without anything unusual happening. I had a few mild nightmares about the video, but luckily that was all. My cousin had gone back home along with the rest of the family. I've not had anything like this happen to me since, but I still think about this incident a lot. Category:"Lost Episodes" Category:Death Category:Template documentation Category:Dismemberment Category:Suggested Reading